I just had this weird idea of having a central bank like place for virtual currency and wondered how come nobody has done it. Is it because of a non standard market or because there is just no market? The closest thing I could find was http://www.vencurrency.com/
Right now I think noone is building such a thing because it's not clear that the feds won't shut it down as soon as they notice. This isn't a big problem for <i>users</i> of virtual currencies, but people running an exchange market could be prosecuted on money laundering charges at the very least.<p>If there were legal precedent that virtual currencies are fully legal to exchange with USD, I think you'd find that exchanges would mushroom overnight, and that virtual currency (particularly Bitcoin) would have a huge spike in value.
The big virtual currencies - Facebook credits, cash and coins in Zynga games - don't work like regular currencies. You can't exchange them for cash, you can't send them to other people, and at any time the entity that controls the currency can change the amount you have.<p>So a third-party bank doesn't make much sense. The companies that created the currencies want to retain control over them.
Very interesting Wednesday morning thought, might take a little while to implement. Let me know if you need any help. Don't know why people "need" to trade virtual currency aside from buyers remorse, money laundering or tax evasion. It could definitely cover a wide variety of digital goods. Virtual currency will be big.
What about BitCoin? <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.bitcoin.org/</a><p>I think one of the more compelling aspects of these virtual currencies is the decentralized nature.